Photographs of Tuskegee Institute: An Illustrated Inventory

The American Antiquarian Society contains a small collection of fifty-six photographs depicting life in and around Tuskegee Institute, in Tuskegee, Alabama, ca. 1890-1915, taken by an unknown photographer. The campus, now known as Tuskegee University, of the school is depicted here during the tenure of the school’s first president Booker T. Washington, who helped grow the industrial school by teaching students trades while they literally built the school, brick-by-brick. Here, African-American students, both male and female, are seen in the various schools on campus learning practical skills including nursing, dairy, sewing, teaching, farming (cotton and sugar cane), mattress making, blacksmithing, printing and laundering. The collection also includes group portraits of students and teachers, many standing outside of the school's buildings. There are also images of the other buildings on and near the school's campus, including former slave quarters and a plantation house.